5 Sales Management Errors That Make You Look Like An Ass

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Ralph

Sales management professionals unwittingly look like asses all the time.

I know, because I’ve done it plenty of times.

One time, I showed up for a sales meeting in front of my entire sales team with my fly wide open (I even had the t-shirt hanging out a little bit too).

Thank God for Dustin MacPherson who coughed “FLYIN LOW!!!” as I entered the room.

Dumb…horse’s ass.

Well, actually embarrassing is more like it…that could be entire series of sales management blog posts on sales management mistakes.

Looking dumb is inevitable, you just can’t avoid it – we’re all human and were going to make mistakes.

But as a sales manager, when you start making the same mistakes over and over again they make you look like an ass…and that’s when it becomes a real problem.

And when you look like an ass on a regular basis, your sales management leadership goes right down the crapper.

So in an effort to help you not to look like an ass in front of your sales team on a regular basis, in this sales management training here are five things Continue reading →

Sales Management Training | Why Sales Quotas Don’t Work

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Ralph

bad sales management Why are so many sales management organizations struggling right now?

It’s not because of the economy…

It’s not because of lazy salespeople (we’ll always have those)…

It’s not because you’re getting squeezed on price because everyone is looking for the lowest price…

It’s because most sales organizations are still using the old and tired way of measuring a salesperson’s effectiveness: sales quotas.

The Sales Management Myth of the Sales Quota

Nearly 100% of all sales management organizations assign sales quotas.

However, less than 10% of all sales organizations assign Continue reading →

The Sales Management Trick to Motivating A Players

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Ralph

a player sales management I once had a salesperson who just wanted to be left alone.

He was one of my top salespeople, an A player, and I figured he knew best.

“Leave well enough alone”, I thought. And I happily spent my time coaching my other, less effective sales reps; the ones who “needed me”.

I figured this was a pretty solid sales management strategy.

That is, until he left to go to the competition in his third year with the company. It was almost exactly a year after I had become his sales manager.

I always regretted that “leaving him alone” decision and I learned never to do it again…especially after he started eating our lunch in the territory he vacated to go to the competition.

The Sales Management Dilemma of The A Player

Your sales people probably tell you that they want to “run their territory as if it’s the business”. They think they’re in charge of their own destinies and all I have to do is just Continue reading →

Sales Management Training | Why Stupid Questions Are Really Smart

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Ralph

stupid sales management questions Stupid questions can be your best friend.

And when you are interviewing salespeople, you’ll hear a lot of them.

In this occasional sales management training series on How to Interview a Salesperson, in this session, we delve into the question and answer part of the interview.

The Q & A Part of The Sales Management Interview

Most sales managers think that once their questions are asked, the interview is over. Most sales management training completely discounts this part of the interview.

That’s really too bad because its probably the most important…

The sales interview is only “over” until, as Blake (played by Alec Baldwin – way before 40 Rock and twenty-something appearances on Saturday Night Live) said in the greatest sales management movie of all time Glengarry Glen Ross… “get them to sign on the line that is dotted”…

(Any opportunity for me to show a video clip of Glengarry Glen Ross on this blog I will! :-) )

Unlike Alex Baldwin, you don’t have to swear and insult the sales interview that asks the stupid question…all you need to do is listen for the questions that are the ones that knock them out of the running.

And these questions are the stupid ones.

Because you don’t want to hire those guys.

And “put the coffee down”! Continue reading →

How to Manage The Egotistical Salesperson

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Ralph

The sales person with an ego the size of Jupiter is notorious in the sales management world.

That’s because most sales managers think of them as incredibly difficult to manage…or are they?

If you feel this way, you’re not alone. Many sales management experts would agree with you.

But in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Its unfortunate that most sales management training focuses on the problems associated with these kinds of sales reps. But with the egotistical sales rep, they are really the easiest for you to manage…you just have to know how.

Not sound like a Freudian sales management training psychoanalyst, Continue reading →